An enterprise network may refer to a geographically dispersed network under the jurisdiction of one organization. For example, an enterprise network may comprise a main server at a central location, e.g., headquarters, coupled to a plurality of intermediate servers where each intermediate server may be located at a geographically separate location from the main server. Each intermediate server may represent a particular location, e.g., store, of an organization. Each intermediate server may then be coupled to a plurality of terminals, e.g., cash registers, personal computers, at that particular location.
Each terminal may be equipped with a BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) based password program. A BIOS based password program may run before control of the terminal is given to any disk based software. This may prevent an unauthorized user from accessing data by starting the terminal from a floppy disk or using other means to change the disk based software. Each time the terminal is activated, the BIOS based password program may issue a password prompt that appears on the monitor. If the correct password is not entered, the system will not boot. It is noted that the BIOS based password program may further request a separate password primarily for system administrators to access the setup options, e.g., BIOS setup options, of the terminal. If the correct password is not entered, access to the setup options will be denied.
Typically, passwords such as passwords to protect unauthorized users from booting the system and accessing setup options are stored in non-volatile Random Access Memory (RAM). By storing passwords in non-volatile RAM, a user at a terminal may be able to change or modify the password which may not be desirable. Users may accidentally or maliciously change the password which may result in untoward consequences such as not being able to boot up the terminal if the user cannot remember the new password. Furthermore, if the user at the terminal forgets the new password, the system administrative staff at the central site, e.g., headquarters, may have difficulty assisting the user as they may not know the new password since the user and not the system administrators at the central site changed the password. Furthermore, in an enterprise network environment, it may be difficult, cumbersome and time consuming to update passwords stored in terminals as each terminal may have different passwords from which to update which may not be known by the system administrators.
It would therefore be desirable to store authentications, e.g., password to protect unauthorized users from booting the system, password to protect unauthorized users from accessing setup options, an authentication number to permit installation of software, within a boot code image, i.e., binary executable boot code, at a terminal, e.g., cash register, personal computer, stored in Read Only Memory (ROM), e.g., flash ROM, thereby preventing the user at the terminal from tampering authentications. It would further be desirable to store or update the authentications stored in the boot code image in each terminal from a remote central site, e.g., headquarters, thereby allowing system administrators at the central site the ability to know the current authentication installed at the terminal.